Sometimes not enough money, never enough independence and professionalism, is the assessment that could best describe the role of public services in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro.
"Instead of RTCG constantly focusing on topics that are important to citizens, criticizing the work of ministries and institutions, seeking and applying pressure to solve problems, the Public Service only transmits the announcements of parties and other subjects, often as a megaphone of the authorities," he says to " Vijesti" director of the non-governmental organization Media Center Goran Đurović.
In the Serbian Public Service, which consists of Radio Television of Serbia and Radio Television of Vojvodina, opposition politicians can hardly look into the studio of RTS, unless there is a strictly prescribed time in the pre-election campaign, in the so-called TV confrontations, and even then they would be met with hostility at times. and journalistically unprofessional. On the other hand, the experienced editors and journalists of RTS seem to not know the meaning of the term official campaign, so both during and outside the elections they report on every move of the government, high officials, especially the President of the Republic, in a positive context.
Buying peace, not a solution
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the problem of financing has culminated to such an extent that the question of the further functioning of BHRT, which together with Radio and Television of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and RTRS, form the Public Broadcasting System, is raised. Milan Dunović, a member of the Committee for Transport and Communications of the House of Representatives of the PSBiH, tells Oslobođenje that one of the key problems is that the Ministry of Transport and Communications of BiH did not get more seriously involved in solving the state of the Public Service.
"The essence of the problem is that RTRS left the system and owes over 80 million KM, and no one talks about that debt. Representatives of BHRT and FTV have their own conflicting stories. Therefore, we asked the relevant ministry for a detailed analysis of the problem, but we did not receive it because the ministry is silent. Even the minister promises some funds to everyone, which is unimaginable because RTRS owes millions, and then let's push them a little more. This is buying peace, not a solution," Dunović points out.
In Montenegro, in the last few decades, there have been frequent accusations against the national public broadcaster that it was subservient to the then ruling Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS). Similar accusations can be heard today - RTCG superficially reports on issues of importance to citizens and protection of public interest in order to Boris Raonic, the first man of the Public Service, retained the position of director.
He was elected in 2021, but the Podgorica High Court found in the middle of last year that the appointment of Raonic was illegal, as well as that he did not meet the requirements of the competition for that position.
After the majority of the members of the RTCG Council decided to re-elect him at a multi-hour session, an investigation was opened against public officials - the president of the RTCG Council Veselin Drljević and members Filip Lazović, Naod Zorić, Predrag Miranovića i Amine Murić due to the suspicion that they refused to execute a final and enforceable court verdict and enabled the elected general manager Raonic to obtain an illegal benefit.
In the same month, the Basic State Prosecutor's Office (ODT) in Podgorica opened a case against Raonic, head of the RTCG legal department. Želimir Mićović and lawyers Zorica Đukanović. The case was submitted to the SDT for assessment as to whether the actions of Raonić, Mićović and Đukanović had the characteristics of the criminal offense of abuse of official position committed through incitement or some other criminal offense under their jurisdiction.
On the other hand, according to Đurović, the critical attitude of RTCG is also questionable.
"The citizen must be in the center of interest of RTCG, and that is not the case now because this media is not allowed to criticize the work of any state body or local self-government - thus the illegally elected general director buys the support of the leaders of the political parties in power. RTCG does not deal with local issues that are of vital importance to citizens. The RTCG reduced its activities to a few news shows in which representatives of all parties take part, say what they think, and that's the end of each topic... As long as the party leaders can call the general director of the RTCG and ask for privileges, there is no free and professional public service", says Đurović.
Virtual image of RTS
Serbian Public Service, if compared to other holders of licenses for the use of national frequencies, commercial pro-regime televisions that recklessly and almost without limits violate media laws and regulations, the Code and moral principles of the journalistic profession, the public service in Serbia gives the image of a "cultural" media. This picture is supported by the variety of programs, scientific, educational and children's, which cannot be seen even in traces on the mentioned televisions, although it is part of the obligation of every broadcaster on the national frequency.
However, that apparent image of the public service "for example", especially Radio Television of Serbia, begins to collapse if the content of the news program, dominantly broadcast on RTS1, is analyzed in a little more detail, which is especially visible in periods such as the December elections, but no less present between election cycles.
It is not even necessary to analyze the data of the monitoring of the news program and the representation of various political actors in the pre-election campaign, what of the State Regulatory Body for Electronic Media (REM), what of the non-governmental organizations that deal with the same work, it is enough to regularly watch the RTS prime time news show, Dnevnik 2. It immediately becomes clear that many events important to the citizens, but oppositionally and critically oriented towards the current government, will not be mentioned at all, or will be found in Dnevnik in a supplement no longer than two minutes, in, say, the 23rd minute of the show.
RTS was mute and deaf to the daily protests of the citizens of "Serbia against violence", even when disgruntled protest participants gathered under their windows, demanding that the public service notice their existence. We did not even hear about the ProGlas initiative, which was active before the December elections and called on citizens to go to the polls. Numerous affairs that would be published by credible investigative media would not find a place in the public service program.
There were no reports on the public service about election irregularities, there were no reports about the discovery of the research portal CINS, whose journalist managed to get into the call center of SNS, where she recorded the entire procedure through which money was paid to her for voting in the elections, and no further revelations by investigative journalists about who is behind the premises and operation of that Call Center have been published. It was not even announced that on election day, voters from Republika Srpska were collected by buses in Stark Arena and distributed to their "new" places of residence to vote. These are just some of the events that, according to RTS, were not "worthy" of being heard about by the citizens of Serbia, who pay a subscription to finance the public service.
Legal solutions are, according to Goran Đurović, a key limitation for a professional Public Service.
"The greatest attention of the working group that worked on media laws was captured by questions related to the way of appointing members of the RTCG Council and management, because it depends on them whether RTCG will truly be a public service for all citizens or whether it will continue to be influenced by political parties that power".
The council, Đurović points out, is the key governing body that elects and dismisses the general director of RTCG, so there is naturally a great interest in the method of appointing members. "The process of appointing Council members, as prescribed in the draft Law, actually goes back to the legal solution from 2008 and 2016. This will change the procedure that was adopted by DPS in July 2020 with the sole aim of legalizing its political influence on RTCG", explains the director of the Media Center.
According to Đurović, the administrative committee of the parliament, with the votes of the majority of the deputies, decides on the four representatives of non-governmental organizations in the Council of RTCG.
"If such a solution remains, it would be scandalous, because we do not see the sense in postponing the changes that should lead to the professionalization of RTCG for two or three years, which was also the reason for the adoption of the new law. If they want to get rid of the inappropriate party influence of the institution and encourage their professionalization, then we need to change the new legal solutions immediately. Just as for the new Prosecutor's Council, we needed the immediate application of the new Law on the State Prosecutor", he adds and says that it remains to be seen whether the current parties in power will adopt the law and apply it immediately, in order to elect a new Council. and RTCG management.
Illegal withholding of tax funds
After numerous meetings of political officials and representatives of the public service in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the situation at BHRT still does not calm down. However, this is a story that did not start yesterday, but the problems have been going on for years, which is why the Public Service of Bosnia and Herzegovina does not function as it should. BHRT reminds that since 2017, RTRS arbitrarily leaves the common tax collection system, and in the Republika Srpska, since then, collection is done through the collection service of RTRS and Post RS, with the fact that they keep all collected money in their account and do not they transfer him in accordance with the Law. According to that Law, BHRT receives half of the money from the fee, and 25 percent is shared by the two entity broadcasters.
According to the same law, the money goes to the accounts of the entity broadcasters, who then transfer the portion that belongs to them to the state.
According to the BHRT, RTV of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina had the obligation to distribute the funds collected through the electricity bill in the legal ratio, which it had not done in the previous six years, because it did not transfer the corresponding 25 percent of the tax to RTRS either. .
"On the basis of that illegal withholding of funds from the tax, BHRT is in the red by over 70 million KM, while RTRS and Federalna achieved non-due income of 54,5 and 20 million KM, respectively. Therefore, BHRT simply could not sign the extension of that Agreement under the same conditions from 2017, because the collapse of BHRT would continue. What we propose is to transfer the funds to the BHRT account, which would then distribute the money from the tax collection. In this way, FTV would no longer be able to keep the money in its account as it did until now, because on that basis it illegally appropriated 20 million KM", this media house points out.
FTV also told about the same problem with billing from RTRS. On the other hand, they deny that FTV bears part of the blame, that is, the debt.
"Regarding the fee collection, RTVFBiH regularly paid the legally due amount of 50 percent to BHRT, and accordingly it has no debts towards BHRT. Considering that BHRT did not want to sign the Annex on the extension of the collection of the RTV tax through the electricity bill of the EPBiH, both public services and RTVFBiH and BHRT were left without income from the tax and thus their survival was called into question," FTV claims. and add that it is possible to solve the problem of stable financing of public services in BiH through the application of the existing Law on the collection of RTV tax in the entire area of BiH or the adoption of new laws and collection models.
In Serbia, on the other hand, the president Aleksandar Vučić, often complains in his broadcasts that he "doesn't have access" to RTS, that the public service is "biased" and sympathetic to the opposition. But official data says otherwise.
In REM's latest report on monitoring coverage during the election campaign, the list "Aleksandar Vučić - Serbia must not stand still" was the most represented of all other campaign participants, with about six hours of programs in news programs on RTS1, or about 12 percent of the total time dedicated to elections. Additionally, state officials were the subject of the program in more than a quarter of the broadcasts or more than 12 hours. Of that, 12,20 percent or almost six hours were spoken by the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister for more than three and a half hours, and so on. It should be noted here that this is shown by the findings of REM, which, in addition to methodological "deficiencies", represent a regulatory body that has been close to the regime for years, and which lies at the core of the impossibility for Serbia to fight the spread of propaganda and for the critical media to reach national frequencies.
Correspondence between Đilas and RTS
In Serbia, public correspondence has been going on for days between the head of one of the parties of the opposition coalition, the Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP), Dragan Đilas, and the Collegium of RTS, which as a body does not exist in the systematization of the public service, but it will be found out later, it exists as an internal advisory body of the general director. It started with Đilas sending an open letter to RTS - stating in detail what the public service "failed" to publish recently, from important events that do not favor the ruling party. The board of RTS responded in a rather cynical tone, with some insults to specific opposition politicians, citing their statements, in order to explain that I guess their professional editorial board assesses that these are irrelevant political actors to have a place in the program. It is interesting that in that letter the Collegium of RTS referred to some events which it pretended did not even happen and which it did not report on. The correspondence continued with Đilas again only listing things that the public service had not even mentioned since the last letter, and the Collegium responded similarly.
Not only is it inappropriate for the management of the "Service of All Citizens" to settle accounts with the opposition or any politician or individual through open letters, and in a similar way they have already "calculated" with journalists from independent newsrooms, but it is in an arrogant, disrespectful and offensive manner. , with an undertone of "we'll do as we want, and you can't do anything to us", as if it was about their ancestors and not about a public good that has been abused for years.
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